You may have heard of moms and dads giving their teenagers alcohol as a parenting tactic—rationales include 1) it’s safer to buy it, serve it, and monitor it in a controlled environment than to have them sneak off with their friends to swig forties in some sketchy parking lot, and 2) it normalizes alcohol so they…

If you’ve ever encountered a “phantom traffic jam,” or traffic slowdown that doesn’t seem to have an apparent cause, it was probably some jackwagon tailgating somebody. Researchers at MIT found that not only does tailgating not get you anywhere faster, it actually creates traffic jams that shouldn’t exist.

You’ve probably got some downtime during the holidays, whether you’re taking a few days off from work (you should), or enjoying your winter break after studying for exams (you didn’t). With 2018 on the way, you can start the new year on the right foot by prepping your resolution plans beforehand. Of course,…

Everybody’s life is filled with ups and downs, but new research suggests everyone’s life follows a particular pattern when it comes to our general contentedness. Around mid-life, we all seem to be pretty bummed.

There are three types of lies: omission, where someone holds out on the facts; commission, where someone states facts that are untrue; and paltering, where someone uses true facts to mislead you. It’s not always easy to detect, but there are a few telltale signs.

You’re in a long, boring meeting. You look up at the clock again, hoping time is passing by faster than it feels, but instead the clock’s seconds hand doesn’t seem to move at all. No, the clock didn’t just pause to mock you, your brain is playing tricks on you.

Ever wonder why hippies love trees so much? It might be thanks to that handful of mushrooms they ate at Burning Man, according to a study published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology that found a (perhaps unsurprising) relationship between one’s experience consuming psychedelics and their perceived connectedness…

The NFL announced this week that they will soon award $40 million to scientists for medical research on brain trauma. That’s a lot, in the sense that if I had $40 million I would change it into gold coins and try to swim in it. But is it a lot of money to the NFL?

A recent study found that people who played first-person shooter video games showed shrinkage in their hippocampus, the region of the brain responsible for both memory management and spatial navigation. But is playing Call of Duty really that bad for you, and if so, can a daily dose of Super Mario 64 balance…

Getting a laptop for your upcoming foray into college is great, but you should leave it alone come class time. According to scientists at Michigan State University, students who voluntarily installed browser tracking software on their laptops were found to spend almost 40 minutes per 100-minute class using the web for…

If you have a son who’s the youngest or middle child, you’re going to want to watch them like a freakin’ hawk. Second-born sons are more likely to get suspended, become juvenile delinquents, and go to prison.